Shop Like a Miser

I've had a lot of requests for grocery shopping tips, so I figured a blog would be the simplest way to share my miserly-ness.
Keep in mind, this process took me months to perfect and I'm sure different methods help different people, but this is what works for my family.

1. Bye-bye Brand names
Wal-Mart is your friend. Unless Albertsons, Safeway, Publix, or Kroger (etc..) are having humongo sales, Wal-Mart will always be cheaper. Not only should you shop at Wal-Mart, you should buy Wal-Mart brands whenever possible (unless you have coupons). The only real difference between brand names and Wal-Mart brands is that Wal-Mart is cheaper.

2. Plan Ahead
Make a menu list, at the very least for dinners. Even if you don't itemize everything you're going to eat, make out a mental plan of it, including snacks. Really hard-core budgeters plan for a whole month and only make one trip each month. I do it weekly. Planning your food reduces the possibility of unnecessary purchases and wasted food. If you eat everything you buy you don't throw away any food. Throwing out food is throwing out money.

3. Cheap-cheap
Be ok with eating cheap. Home-cooked meals take much more effort than a packaged dinner, but are waaay cheaper. A casserole is not too difficult to make and doubles as the next day's lunch and dinner, plus it stretches out your meat supply. Beans and mushrooms are also great, cheap ways to supplement meat. Instead of couking a whole piece of meat. eat half with a pile of beans or rice and veggies. It's not fancy, but it's fillling and much healthier.

4. Drinks
Not only are juices and sodas expensive, they're calorie-packed. Drink more water and limit yourself to one glass of juice per day. And don't buy bottled water; get a Nalgene. Cutting out drinks makes the grocery bill plummet.

5. Lists
I love lists of any kind; I'm a little obsessed with them. After making your menu plan write a list based on the plan. Look carefully over your menu for each ingredient you will need and add it to your list. Once you get to the store, stick to your list like a Nazi, this will rule out impulse buying.

6. Bulk Up
Buy in bulk whenever possible. Unless there's a great sale on smaller portions, a larger portion is much cheaper. I buy the biggest package of chicken (or whatever) Wal Mart has. When I get home, I open it and portion it (2 breasts a pack for me and Johnny). I refrigerate what I will need in the next couple days and freeze the rest. This way I only buy meat a couple time per month at most. This can also work for milk, cheese, and other various perishables. Obviously, it's easy to store non-perishables for quite a while.

7. Stock up on Sales
Along the same lines, if there's a sale, buy extra. Again, the freezer is your ally.

8. Minimize Snacks
Snacks are bad for you anyway. Not only that, chips and candy are expensive. Limiting your snacks will save you big bucks.

That's all I can come up with at the moment. I hope it helps. And this took me well over an hour to write due to my precious little ones, so you'd better appreciate it. ;)